To a question
from Miss Bradwardine, he muttered, in answer, something about his horse
having fallen; and, seeming desirous to escape both from the subject and
the company, he arose as soon as breakfast was over, made his bow to the
party, and, declining the Baron's invitation to tarry till after dinner,
mounted his horse and returned to his own home.
Waverley now announced his purpose of leaving Tully-Veolan early enough
after dinner to gain the stage at which he meant to sleep; but the
unaffected and deep mortification with which the good-natured and
affectionate old gentleman heard the proposal, quite deprived him of
courage to persist in it. No sooner had he gained Waverley's consent
to lengthen his visit for a few days, than he laboured to remove the
grounds upon which he conceived he had meditated a more early retreat.
'I would not have you opine, Captain Waverley, that I am by practice or
precept an advocate of ebriety, though it may be that, in our festivity
of last night, some of our friends, if not perchance altogether EBRII,
or drunken, were, to say the least, EBRIOLI, by which the ancients
designed those who were fuddled, or, as your English vernacular and
metaphorical phrase goes, half-seas-over.
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